Kingston mayor backs Cooperage senior housing proposal

KINGSTON >> Mayor Steve Noble says he supports a proposed 72-unit senior housing project in Midtown — one of two significant projects expected to come before the city Planning Board next month.

The Bruyn Avenue housing project, known as The Cooperage, and a proposal for an indoor shooting range on Prince Street are to be considered by planners when they meet at 6 p.m. Feb. 8 in City Hall, 420 Broadway.

Noble said The Cooperage, proposed by Birchez Associates and its managing partner, Steve Aaron, would be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

“The Cooperage looks to provide an opportunity for seniors to live within a city setting and have access to numerous services in our new and upcoming arts district,” the new mayor said in an email. “The fact that this proposed project looks to renovate historic buildings, while also building on land that is currently an eyesore in the neighborhood, is a win-win for the city of Kingston.”

The Cooperage would occupy the vacant former Kingston Cooperage Co. building where Bruyn Avenue dead-ends at the CSX railroad tracks.

Noble said he looks “forward to seeing this project work its way through the planning process.”

Aaron said recently that he’s confident construction will begin in the first quarter of 2017 “at the latest.”

The city Planning Board voted unanimously in September 2014 to extend for 18 months the permit granted to Birchez Associates to build the project. Birchez now needs an additional extension, which is why the project is back before the board.

The project, estimated to cost at least $16 million, first was proposed in November 2011.

The Kingston Cooperage Co. originally was called the Kingston Barrel Corp. and began producing beer barrels in the brick building on Bruyn Avenue in August 1933, just four months before Prohibition ended.